Sermon Tone Analysis

Daniel 11

OPENING REMARKS

I’m not going to read the whole of the chapter today because of it’s length, but hopefully most of you have familiarised yourself with it.

This chapter once again reinforces the great theme of the book of Daniel; that God rules both in the heavens and on the earth, that He is sovereign, that world events happen according to His plan and occur at His timing.

Over and over in this chapter you see the phrase repeated by the angel speaking to Daniel ‘at the appointed time’.

Who appoints the precise timing for all these things that happen in Daniel 11? God does.

He reigns so completely over His creation, so precisely and yet without violating the freedom of His creatures He brings all His will to pass perfectly and not earlier or later than He planned, but exactly according to the timing He appointed before the foundation of the world.

God isn’t sat up there in heaven helplessly twiddling his thumbs as some preachers would have it.

He is not at the mercy of human free will, unable to get His will done until we agree with Him.

He is relentlessly bringing His sovereign will to pass every minute of every day.

What do you mean?

How can God be bringing His will to pass in my life, if I’m suffering!!

Much of this whole passage of scripture has to do with preordained suffering for God’s people, even those who are faithful to Him:

Suffering, pain and loss in the life of a Christian are not always evidence of the devil getting his way.

They are certainly not evidence that God isn’t sovereign.

Even these things are appointed in God’s perfect timing for a believer so that they may be refined, purified and made white.

If we are united with Christ, who suffered in His earthly life, how do we expect not to suffer also?

This same doctrine of God’s sovereign timing applies to all the affairs of this world as we experience them now, all things are happening according to God’s plan and in His timing.

Your life is unfolding according to His timing, you live according to His appointed timing.

If God is so careful about ordering the universe, taking care of every last detail, then we can be sure that His plan will come to pass in our lives at His perfect timing.

Does life feel out of control now?

Do you feel like you’ve missed your chance?

Does it feel like God has abandoned you?

Not a chance.

He is bringing about His purposes in your life with precision and care, but according to His timing, not yours.

I think we will also see in this passage today the importance of knowing God; knowing who He is, His nature, His character, His word, His commandments and then also knowing Him personally, having a relationship with Him.

We will see that It would be those who really knew God who would be able to stand firm and be strong in the face of persecution and deception, it was those who knew God who were able to act decisively and do great things even at the risk of losing their lives.

We will also see again the remarkable accuracy of Bible prophecy.

This passage predicts certain historical events with such ridiculous levels of accuracy that sceptics claim it is simply too accurate and must have been written at a later date.

Much of the chapter deals with details concerning two Kings; the king of the north and the king of the south.

We won’t go into every detail of what is put before us today, interesting as that would be, we would be here all day, but we will need to understand broadly speaking what is happening here so that we don’t make misapplications.

Some preachers have preached that all of this prophecy is future, some preach that everything from verse 5 onwards is still future for us, some preach that everything in this passage has already happened.

So it will be worth our while to take a quick moment to consider what’s happening here.

VERSES 1-4

In verses 1-35 some say there are up to 135 independent facts of history that are accurately predicted.

The fourth Persian king of verse 2 that becomes strong and stirs up all against Greece is nearly universally accepted as being King Xerxes.

He reportedly had the largest army the world had ever seen.

When invading Greece his army created a bridge made out of ships across the Hellespont to cross over towards Greece because it would have taken them a year to walk around on land.

It took his massive army 7 days and nights to cross over the bridge of boats.

Xerxes’s armies amassed at Thermopylae where they were famously held back for 3 days by 300 spartan warriors led by King Lionidus.

The mighty king of verse 3 who rules with great dominion but whos kingdom shall be broken almost as soon as he has arisen is taken to be Alexander the Great.

This passage of scripture, written roughly 200 years before Alexander the great began his conquests accurately predicts that his life would be broken almost as soon as his dominion arose; after drinking and partying he died of a fever in Babylon at the age of 32.

His kingdom was then divided up into four, he did have sons and also another potential heir within his family but they were all murdered and instead four generals divided up the Greek empire into four kingdoms, north, south, east and west.

VERSES 5-35

The rest of this passage deals only with the kings of the north and the south.

Why?

Because these two regions of the Greek empire were the ones that fought for control over the holy land.

The northern kingdom was ruled initially by a General named Seleucus 1, over an area now covered by the nations of Syria and part of Iraq.

The southern kingdom was ruled by a man named Ptolemy 1, and the southern kingdom was the land of Egypt.

Each king that reigned in those regions took the name of the first ruler; Seleucus or Ptolemy.

So the name ‘the king of the north/the king of the south’ could refer to Ptolemy 1,2,3,4 or Seleucus 1,2,3,4.

This prophecy spans the lives of several rulers of each region.

There are some insanely accurate predictions in here which have made some sceptics doubt that the book was written until after these things happened.

But interestingly, the historian Josephus, who wrote in the 1st century AD wrote that the reason Alexander the Great didn’t sack Jerusalem on his way through the holy land was that the high priest came out to him and read him the book of Daniel, and pointed out that he was prophesied about in the book and Alexander left Jerusalem alone.

The prophecies from verses 5 through until at least verse 36 span a period of history between 305BC and 164BC, around 141 years, so not a massively long period of time but a lot happened!

VERSE 6 - This verse is a veiled reference to the marriage of Bernice, the daughter of the Egyptian King Ptolemy II, to Antiochus II of Syria (grandson of Seleucus) around 250 B.C. Bernice, her husband, and her son died by poisoning.

VERSE 7 - The historical reference in this verse is to the intervention of Ptolemy III, the brother of Bernice, who took revenge for the death of his sister in a military expedition against Seleucus II of Syria, son of Antiochus II, in 246 B.C.

As indicated in the following verse, he took considerable spoils back to Egypt.

VERSE 17 - This verse is an apparent reference to the marriage of Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus III, to Ptolemy V.

The Syrian king counted on this alliance to dominate little by little the Egyptian kingdom, but Cleopatra took the side of her husband against her father.

VERSES 21-36

A large chunk of this chapter concerns one particular king of the North, a contemptible person who shall take the throne illegitimately through flattery and who shall profane the temple set up an abomination that causes desolation.

VERSE 21 - Seleucus IV had a son named Demetrius who should have succeeded him, but Antiochus IV, the brother of Seleucus IV, seized the royal power when his brother was assassinated.

Later Antiochus IV took the name of Epiphanes.

This man is written about in the 8th chapter of the book of Daniel as the little horn of the Greek empire; his name is antiochus Epiphanes and he ruled from 175-164BC.

We dealt with his story in some depth a few weeks back so I won’t go into to much detail here.

But here we can see the things he did accurately prophesied

His first conquest and victory over Ptolemy VI and Egypt in verses 25 and 26

His second attempt at conquest of Egypt and subsequent retreat after the Roman navy landed and forced his withdrawal in 29 and 30

His outpouring of rage against the jews on his way back to Syria after being humiliated by the Roman general Poppilius in verse 30.

His desecration of the temple, when he dedicated it to Zeus and sacrificed a pig on the altar on December 25th 168BC in verse 31.

We know that this man, is a foreshadowing of the future little horn, or otherwise known as the antichrist.

So, what we see of Antiochus, we will also see of the future antichrist.

That he will enter in illegitimately through flattery and deceit, that he will exalt himself above all gods and speak blasphemy against the God of Gods, he will be an architypal narcissist, a man who has an answer for everything, a man of means who understands riddles as the Bible puts it.

That he will ultimately turn against the people of God and will desecrate a rebuilt temple and set up an abomination that causes desolation.

THOSE THAT KNOW THEIR GOD

There were many Jews who sided with Antiochus Epiphanes at the time.

Many of them felt that resistance against him was futile and that they should get over themselves and start worshipping the way the Greeks did, that they ought to dispense with the old ways and begin to live like the Greeks did.

There was one group that didn’t succumb, however.

And they are mentioned in verse 32, and this is the verse I want to give special attention to:

A few months after the pig sacrifice in the temple, one of Antiochus’s envoys entered a small town north of Jerusalem and set up an altar and commanded an elderly priest Mattathias Hasmonean to offer a sacrifice to the pagan gods, he refused.

Another villager, fearing violence, stepped forward and volunteered to be the first to make an offering.

Mattahias, in a fit of holy rage grabbed a sword and slew the man on the spot before turning on the men who brought the altar, killing them all.

This was the beginning of the Maccbean revolt, which ended in the reconsecration of the temple three years later in December 165.

This is now celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hannukah.

Mattathias and his five sons, and all those who rallied around them were those people who knew their God, who stood strong and who took action.

Because of their actions, the enemies of God’s people were eventually overthrown and true worship once again flourished.

Just as these men were standing against a type of antichrist in their day, so we in our day are seeing the church attacked on every side by an antichrist spirit.

Teaching that leads people away from God by exalting the glory and power of man over God, teaching that is worldly, sensual and preoccupied with riches and gai.

And only those who KNOW their God will be able to stand firm.

ידע (ydʿ), VB. know, notice, hear of, learn; reveal, be or become known; realize.

Greek equiv.

fr.

LXX: γινώσκω (284), οἶδα (107).

LTW יָדַע (Knowledge), יָדַע (Learning), מְיֻדָּע (Friendship), יָדַע (Belief).

To know God is the highest and best form of knowledge.

Every born again believer is someone who has a thirst for more knowledge about their God!

How can we know of God then?

The natural world

The way things are